Frauen schlagen im Streit zwischen Partnern häufiger zu

The authors say they have no intention of minimizing the very real problem of serious domestic violence — the classic male batterer. The survey did not cover the use of knives, guns, choking, or burning, and it was not concerned with the kind of situation that can drive a woman to seek shelter outside the home. The view of the authors is that most intimate partner violence should not be equated with severe battering. Domestic disputes that turn physical because of retaliation and escalation do not have the same causes or the same consequences as male battering. Couples counseling is generally regarded as ineffective for batterers, but if the violence is moderate and the injuries are minor, both partners are involved, and they want to stay together, it makes sense for a therapist to work with both of them.

Graham-Kevan’s paper fully documents overwhelming evidence that the “patriarchal dominance” theory of partner violence (PV from here on) explains only a small part of PV. Moreover, more such evidence is rapidly emerging. To take just one recent example, analyses of data from 32 nations in the International Dating Violence Study (Straus 2006; Straus and International Dating Violence Research Consortium 2004) found about equal perpetration rates and a predominance of mutual violence in all 32 samples, including non-Western nations. Moreover, data from that study also show that, within a couple relationship, domination and control by women occur as often as by men and are asstrongly associated with perpetration of PV by women as by men (Straus 2006). Graham-Kevan also documents the absence of evidence indicating that the patriarchal dominance approach to prevention and treatment has been effective. In my opinion, it would be even more appropriate to say that what success has been achieved in preventing and treating PV has been achieved despite the handicaps imposed by focusing exclusively on eliminating male-dominance and misogyny, important as that is as an end in itself. Graham-Kevan’s paper raises the question of how an explanatory theory and treatment modality could have persisted for 30 years and still persists, despite hundreds of studies which provide evidence that PV has many causes, not just male-dominance. The answer is that it emerged from a convergence of a number of different historical and social factors. One of these is that gender symmetry in perpetration of partner violence is inconsistent with male predominance in almost all other crimes, especially violent crimes. Another is the greater injury rate suffered by female victims of PV brings female victimization to public attention much more often. Although there are many causes of the persistence of the patriarchal dominance focus, I believe that the predominant cause has been the efforts of feminists to conceal, deny, and distort the evidence. Moreover, these efforts include intimidation and threats, and have been carried out not only by feminist advocates and service providers, but also by feminist researchers who have let their ideological commitments overrule their scientific commitments.